You may remember I'm taking a health class with a teacher who's pretty much in line with the gov. reccomendations on fats, carbs, cholesterol, etc.

I'm doing a project about diet, cholesterol, and heart disease, and I could use some internet sources (we cant use books except the textbook, no joke) that advocate low carb and/or talk about triglycerides, VLDL, dense/fluffy LDL, rather than just HDL and LDL and "avoid saturated fat." So if you guys know of any good ones (hopefully of a scientific nature), I would appreciate the tip.

I'm sure that study was funded by the food and grain manufacturers. You know, the guys that make, process and sell cerials, crackers, cookies, etc. Lobbyists. I'm pushing 61, have been doing low carb most of my life, and have lower chloresterol than most kids 1/3 of my age, and NO heart problems. Back in the 60's, Dr. Stillman came out with his "Water Diet", which was basically Atkin's, 20 years before Atkins came out with his stuff, and they bashed him, they've tried to bash Atkins, and now even the cardiologists (Sears, the Eades , etc) are all pushing low carb diets. They are all just facing opposition from the lobbyists from the grain processing manufacturer's.
Tim

I used to get into debates with my family over this all the time, when they treated me like a heroin addict for eating so many eggs. When my Dad got put on high blood pressure meds and various other things, he was given info packs from the British Heart Foundation. I believe out of everyone, i'm the only one to have read them all. In one book it talks about avoiding dairy and foods with high fat content in general, particulart sat fat and cholesterol. Then in another book it talks about HDL vs LDL and writes positively about the role of HDL's. Then it says eggs are a good source of HDL.

So, the British Heart Foundation contradicts themself. Even they don't know what they're talking about. Atleast the 'experts' who recommend diets freakishly similar to that needed to fatten up cattle (the food pyramid!) have a little consistency in what they say.

Heh there was an episode of "Parks and Recreation" recently where what was currently being marketed as an "energy drink" was discovered to have been marketed as a cattle fattener previously - a rare instance of "mainstream" media being anti-corn/sugar. Though sadly later in the same episode they disparaged steak.

I don't know if its a sound argument to use the fact that we use grains to fatten our cattle up to not eat them as humans. I'm not saying I don't agree- but that's like vegans using the argument that gorillas are vegetarians so we should be too (in fact that's even better since we are more closely related to them). I think grains were important for human advancement because as a race we used to expend a lot more calories a day doing manual labor stuff. Now that we are so sedentary, they've obviously become part of the problem. So we either go back to busting our asses in the fields everyday or eat smarter I guess.

I don't know if its a sound argument to use the fact that we use grains to fatten our cattle up to not eat them as humans. I'm not saying I don't agree- but that's like vegans using the argument that gorillas are vegetarians so we should be too (in fact that's even better since we are more closely related to them). I think grains were important for human advancement because as a race we used to expend a lot more calories a day doing manual labor stuff. Now that we are so sedentary, they've obviously become part of the problem. So we either go back to busting our asses in the fields everyday or eat smarter I guess.

It's not a solid example I would use either, it's just interesting - Kind of like how it's supposed to be well known amongst pig farmers that they fatten better on low fat milk vs whole milk. However there's plenty of other reasons not to eat grains if you believe various sources.

I think with cows, the common theme is that grass is high in omega 3. Where as grains are high in omega 6. It's thought by some that this ratio of omega 3:6 changing so much in favour of Omega 6 is one reason for our (humans) increase in obesity (amongst other things). The same has happend with cattle (more grain and therefore more omega 6 and, they fatten up quicker).

I'm going to start sounding like a strict Paleo follower here, and i'm not. I eat grains and i'm not convinced that they're as bad as made out to be by some. There's a lot of very credible 'experts' who pick apart the basis for Paleo principles. I'm deffinitly not a 'paleo' guy but I agree with many of the principles. I'm very much against high carb diets, too, and I don't fear fat. Infact I love it. Saturated Fat in particular is the business, it makes you feel great.

My main disagreement is grains being the basis/foundation of your diet. Infact, I believe that if you turned the food pyramid upside down, completely reversing the order of it, so that grains were at the top, then that would be a good start and we would be on the road to some sound diet recommendations!

EDIT: Having wrote that post I had a quit glance at the food pyramid. Completely forget they put 'sweets' in with fats and oils. Guess turning it upside down wouldn't be a great idea after all but, i'm sure you get the point...

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum